Andy Slater (born Scotland, 1979) is currently based in Dundee, Scotland where he maintains a studio practice as a painter. His art work deals with manipulation and control, perception and beauty, mythology and traffic islands. Through abstraction, pattern, collage, plastics and embroidery, process is an integral part of Andy’s practice. In 2013 he completed an MA in Future Landscape Imaginaries, making new paintings and vacuum formed plastic works that examine systems, protocol, and the production of space. In 2008 he undertook a residency in New York where he completed new large-scale paintings, screenprints and embroideries based on the representations of well-known female figures in history such as Eve (with Adam), Delilah (with Samson) and Salome. In his solo show at the Star and Shadow in Newcastle, Since I Got My iPod Everything is Filmic and Beautiful (May-June 2007) he exhibited paintings drawing upon the Greek myths of Flora, Chloris and Zephyr, amongst other works which made reference to famous landscape paintings from Monet to Bruegel.

In addition to his studio work, Andy has worked in a technical or artistic capacity for venues such as BALTIC and projects including Platform North East, Star Board Home (Newcastle), and The Embassy (Edinburgh) and spent a period of time working at the Venice Biennial (Zenomap Project, Scottish Pavilion, 2003). Slater has an MA from Newcastle University, a 1st Class Hons. degree in Fine Art from the University of Dundee and has undertaken research residencies at San Martino de Scale, Sicily, on board the MS. Stubnitz, at The Banff Centre, Canada and at PointB, New York.

My practice ranges from painting to woodwork and includes editioned work (multiples) in a range of media including embroidery and sculpted readymade objects. The main body of my work is centered upon abstract garden-scape painting. My paintings are built from layers of hypnotic pattern and collage. Using a framework of wooden installation, they make reference to architecture and create a rudimentary habitat for both the image and the viewer. These works present a dialogue between abstraction and naturalism, inducing in the viewer a sense of wonder. Dealing with beauty, love and qualities of masculinity and femininity, I take inspiration from Gothic aesthetic and ethos.

My paintings draw on the natural and constructed landscapes around me and on existing narratives – from Greek myths such as that of Chloris and Zephyr, to literature by Goethe and D. H. Lawrence. As the idilic environments of the paintings have become populated it is evident that narrative often deals with misogyny. Recent works in painting and embroidery have made reference to Salome, Faust, and the Islamic concept of Fitna. I seek to join the philosophies on life and love found in these tales with an understanding of nature – the details of the petals of flowers as important as what the colour of them might signify. My work has a pop decorative aesthetic but can be read at a number of emotional and intellectual levels – the narrative at play is not always immediately apparent, but feelings of wonder, sadness, loss and love are.